Inflexibility of experts—Reality or myth?

[watertank]

How does the knowledge of experts affect their behaviour in situations that require unusual methods of dealing? One possibility, loosely originating in research on creativity and skill acquisition, is that an increase in expertise can lead to inflexibility of thought due to automation of procedures. Yet another possibility, based on expertise research, is that experts’ knowledge leads to flexibility of thought.
[the authors} tested these two possibilities in a series of experiments using the Einstellung (set) effect paradigm. Chess players tried to solve problems that had both a familiar but non-optimal solution and a better but less familiar one. The more familiar solution induced the Einstellung (set) effect even in experts, preventing them from finding the optimal solution. The presence of the non-optimal solution reduced experts’ problem solving ability was reduced to about that of players three standard deviations lower in skill level by the presence of the non-optimal solution. Inflexibility of thought induced by prior knowledge (i.e., the blocking effect of the familiar solution) was shown by experts but the more expert they were, the less prone they were to the effect. Inflexibility of experts is both reality and myth. But the greater the level of expertise, the more of a myth it becomes.

Merim Bilalić,Peter McLeoda and Fernand Gobet. 2007.

Comments

[watertank.livejournal.com]

The ambivalent role of prior knowledge in creativity can be seen in many different research traditions.

The following quote from Kuhn’s famous work on ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’ (1996/1962) summarises the view that very knowledgeable people can be inflexible: “Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions… have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change” (p. 90). These creative minds were more open to new ideas and could accept the break with previous theories because they were not too deeply immersed in the established thought patterns of their more experienced colleagues.

[watertank.livejournal.com]

knowledge is necessary but too much of it can be harmful for creativity—it is almost a necessary evil (see also Csikszentmihalyi, 1996 and Simonton, 1999). This view of creativity is not restricted to scientific research. As a popular ‘creativity trainer’ wrote: “Too much experience within a field may restrict creativity because you know so well how things should be done that you might be unable to escape to come up with new ideas” (deBono, 1968, p. 228).